


Jefferson's Starship

by BarPurple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, During Regina's First Dark Curse, Gen, Hallucinations, Inspired by Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7301344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late night walk reveals a side of Storybrooke that Jefferson hadn't seen before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jefferson's Starship

Jefferson dug his hands deeper into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the chill night air. He’d recently taken to walking around Storybrooke late at night; it was safer than interacting with anyone during the day. It had been getting harder and harder lately to not grab people and shake them. He’d almost slipped up a few times by calling people the wrong name. The Curse seemed to protect itself and after an instant of confusion Mary Margaret had gently laid her hand on his arm and said thank you for such a sweet compliment. Rumplestiltskin had just frowned at him and snarled that he had no time for a madman’s flights of fancy.

A madman that cut close to the quick he knew what he was, what Wonderland had made him, but it would have been nice to have some words of comfort from his oldest friend. Jeff snorted to himself, keep thinking like that and he would lose his tentative grip on the shreds of his sanity. Comfort was not permitted here. Oh he had wealth and all its trappings, but it was a hollow thing, an illusion just like everything else in this bloody town. 

His aimless wandering had brought him to the docks. If the picture perfect town of the Evil Queen’s creation had a seedy underbelly this was it. Good wholesome townsfolk didn’t walk these streets after dark, which is why Jefferson was a little surprise to see a group of figures in the shadow of one of the warehouses. They looked up at the sound of his approach, and their guilty shifting told him he’d come across something illegal. The sensible thing would be to turn around and walk away. 

Sensible and Jefferson hadn’t been on speaking terms for a very long time.

He gave them a careful nod. As he got closer her realise he recognized some of them, in another life they had worked the palace of the Queen of Hearts, gardeners maybe, or grooms? Either way they originally hailed from Wonderland. 

“Hey mister, looking to score?”

That intrigued him; he stepped closer, putting himself in arms reach of at least two of the men. He was tempting Fate, but the idea of a fight was alluring.

“What you got?”

“Toads. Have you kissing the sky you’ll fly so high.”

The little baggie contained three little garishly coloured pills. The man, a groom Jeff was sure of it now he could see more of his face, waved the bag.

“Take the lot. Best trip you’ll ever take.”

Jefferson tilted his head and considered for a second. What the hell, he was a rich eccentric here, dabbling in colourful pharmaceuticals was practically expected.

“How much?”

The former groom licked his lips and named a price. His eyebrows hiked up when Jefferson shrugged and handed over the cash without trying to haggle. Money was nothing to him here, gone were the days he had to count every copper, not that this flimsy paper stuff felt like real money anyway. He took the baggie and held it up to the light, these things really did look like something from Wonderland. He opened the bag and shook the three pills into his mouth.

“Hey mister you might want to get somewhere chill first.”

Jefferson shrugged and made a show of gulping them down.

“Thank you gentlemen. See you on the flipside.”

He strode away feeling no different. Regina had probably made sure that drugs had no effect here, can’t have people experiencing even false happiness.

He reconsidered that when he noticed the walls of the warehouse next to him breathing; corrugated metal bending in and flexing out in slow deep relaxed breaths, must be sleeping. Jefferson tiptoed past not wanting to wake the slumbering building. The streetlights on the harbour front tasted of citrus. Okay, so drugs worked here. Why had it taken him so long to find this out? 

This was awesome; the floor was floating under him pushing him along to the beach. He flopped back on the sand and watched as the wheeling stars above him slowed to a crawl. The shadows that blanketed the town began to break free, ripping from gravity’s grasp and surging towards the starry sky at a million miles an hour. Jefferson tried to catch them as the swept past him. No, no they had to wait for him, they were rushing to freedom and he was still trapped here in this false bubble of time. The shadows slipped through his fingers and danced just out of his grasp.

The stars erupted; shards of burning light pierced the shadows staking them to the ground. Jefferson mourned their imprisonment in this ever repeating hellhole. The stars span and twirled. Grace skipped across them like they were smooth stones in a shallow river, a basket of mushrooms hooked on her arm. She stopped and waved at him. He blinked so slowly he could feel the drag of his lids across his eye balls. The stars had turned into a swan. It reared up and beat its wings, the thin reality of Storybrooke crumpled in the whirlwind it created.

The world went dark.

The burning light of the future blinded him, pulling him upright.

“Come on Mr Jefferson. Good time last night?”

Jefferson squinted against the morning light, eventually the hazy figure of the Sheriff swam into focus.

“Morning already?”

“That it is. I think you should head home and sleep it off.”

Jefferson snorted and shook his arm free of the Sheriff’s gentle grip; “I need to wake up not sleep,” He glanced at the sky, at the echo of a rearing swan in the clouds, “Maybe we’ll all be waking up soon.”

Sheriff Graham tilted his head and frowned; “What was that, sir?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Nickelback's Million Miles a Hour


End file.
